7.0 Nichols Creek Catchment: Opportunities/Actions

Water Quality/Quantity

Private landowners should consider taking advantage of The Rural Clean Water Programs which offer grants to landowners interested in implementing projects on their property that will help to protect and improve water quality:

Homeowners may be interested in projects to repair, replace or upgrade their well or septic system, or addressing erosion through buffer plantings and erosion control

Farmers can take advantage of a wide range of projects, including livestock fencing, manure storage, tile drainage control structures, cover crops, and many more

Continue to coordinate environmental monitoring and reporting activities with the City of Ottawa

List, share and when possible, synthesize and use existing hydrological and geochemical datasets and assessment outcomes to facilitate the characterization of subwatershed and catchment hydrological functions. In addition, prepare guidance on best practices for the preparation of water budget assessments to better understand the hydrologic cycle requirements that occur at site specific scales; and share existing catchment and subwatershed scale water budget assessment outcomes

Nichols Creek flood risks are to be studied as part of ongoing efforts to prepare flood plain mapping for the Jock River subwatershed

Headwaters/Instream/Shorelines

Educate landowners about the value of and best management practices used to maintain and enhance natural shorelines and headwater drainage features

Work with the Township of Montague and City of Ottawa to consistently implement current land use planning and development policies for water quality and shoreline protection (i.e., adherence to a minimum 30 metre development setback from water) adjacent to the Jock River and other catchment watercourses, including Nichols Creek

Land Cover

Promote the City of Ottawa Green Acres Reforestation Program and the Rideau Valley Trees for Tomorrow Program to landowners to increase existing woodland cover

Encourage the Township of Montague and City of Ottawa to strengthen natural heritage and water resources policies in official plans and zoning by-laws where shoreline, wetland, woodland cover and watercourse setbacks are determined to be at or below critical ecological thresholds. Information for this purpose is provided in the RVCA’s subwatershed and catchment reports

Explore ways and means to more effectively enforce and implement conditions of land-use planning and development approvals to achieve net environmental gains

Re-consider the RVCA’s approach to wetland regulation where there is an identified hydrologic imperative to do so (i.e., significant loss of historic wetland cover (see Figure 47) and/or seasonal, critically low baseflows in the Jock River and/or areas of seasonal flooding)